


No Ogres in Singapore

by beswathe



Category: Persona 2, Persona | Revelations Persona
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-Game(s), Pre-Slash, Two Extremely Reserved People Try Extremely Reserved Flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 11:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17344799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beswathe/pseuds/beswathe
Summary: Kei Nanjo usually visits Sumaru City to impart bad news. As far as double-edged swords go, Katsuya is all right with it.





	No Ogres in Singapore

Whenever those glitzy, sleek magazines devote a column or two to Kei Nanjo, they summarise him with three descriptors that are, Katsuya supposes, technically true. It’s almost compulsory for writers to dub him _Japan’s_ _golden boy_ : either in earnest, or with a nod to how hackneyed the phrase has become. They make sure, too, to designate him as a mere heir to the Nanjo Group—yet he hasn’t been some dormant understudy for a while now, working within it since his return from studying in England.

The third thing is the least precise, though it is factual. Journalists always make a point of stating that Nanjo remains a resident of his sleepy hometown, Mikage-Cho, as though it’s some charitable act, or proof of modesty belied by his riches.

Katsuya internally contests the claim when he stumbles upon it in print. Nanjo is many things, but he’s certainly not modest, and he’s most certainly no homebody either. Katsuya knows this because he counts Nanjo—tentatively, and with a chronic sense of surrealism that he can even use the word about a man like that—as a _friend_.

Nanjo’s modesty (or lack thereof) becomes apparent by spending any time around him whatsoever, but only a select few are privy to the knowledge that Kei is really a man of the world. He’s educated, of course, able to quote Sun Tzu or von Bismarck, but his extensive itinerary is something he keeps painstakingly hidden from the public. All the cities he visits—Moscow, London, Jakarta—aren’t visited for _fun_ , after all, though he no doubt makes room for recreation while he’s there.

Katsuya can only wonder how the terminally dull Sumaru compares.

He doubts Nanjo’s seen that much of his city anyway, their past skirmishes aside. Nanjo always stays in the penthouse suite of Hotel Pleiades (how he secures it on short notice, Katsuya dreads to think), and has little reason to part from his creature comforts when he’s got an entourage to run his errands.

This evening is no different. Like they always do, that entourage brings Nanjo his favourite tea while he claims his favourite chair, and he gestures for Katsuya to take the same seat as usual.

(Maybe he finds the whole routine monotonous.)

(What’s dull for a billionaire, though, is _infinitely_ more exciting for a common civil servant.)

“Where did you fly in from this time?” Katsuya says, conversationally, reaching for the teacup prepared for him. He didn’t ask for it, but wouldn’t have refused anyway; it’s always served the way he prefers it.

“Singapore.” Kei leans back in his seat and emits a theatrical sigh, tugging ever-so-slightly at his scarf. “With a brief stop in Taiwan.”

“Singapore… I hear the food is good there.”

“At the risk of disappointing you terribly, I had no chance to sample the local cuisine.”

“Ah.” Katsuya sets the cup down gently, as though the clatter would aggravate Nanjo’s already apparent jetlag. He looks tired, and when he's tired he's terse. “A business trip, then.”

“In _our_ field of business, yes.”

Nanjo makes their common ground sound immaterial—as though they met through a hobby, or by supporting the same sports team. Katsuya marvels, sometimes, at how easily he takes it in his stride, but that’s just the sort of person he is. Where Katsuya would call it a curse, Nanjo would call their knowledge of apocalypses and how to prevent them a blessing, or maybe a calling. A battle that he, already accustomed to bigger and better things, was naturally born to fight.

Perhaps he’s not wrong about that.

“You were met with smoother sailing than last time, I hope,” Katsuya says.

Nearly a decade of active duty has taught him to school his features when he has to, but he still regards Nanjo at an angle, tentatively concerned. Their last meeting had seen Nanjo sporting a black eye… which Nanjo had seemed mostly displeased with for cosmetic reasons.

“There are, thankfully, no ogres in Singapore.” Nanjo’s brow arches just a fraction, as though Katsuya should’ve known that already. “Besides, this mission was strictly reconnaissance. I met with a merchant near the border.”

“Weaponry?”

“ _Books_. As pertinent as they are obscure. I secured the lot of them, of course, but…” Nanjo pauses. He rarely smiles of his own accord, and he barely smiles now, but his mouth twitches at the corner. “While I was haggling with the blundering old fool, I found myself missing the ogres.”

Katsuya returns the smile, a little wider than necessary. He finds the absurdity of making small-talk with one of Japan’s ‘thirty richest under thirty’ more novel than the paranormal subject matter; he decides it’s wiser not to dwell on what that means about the state of his life.

And anyway, if Nanjo is making jokes—another rarity, usually at someone else’s expense—then it’s a sign he didn’t summon Katsuya here to deliver bad news.

While he leaps at the chance whenever Nanjo invites him, that’s always lingering fear in the back of his head. Whether it’s to pass on a demon sighting, or simply impart the rather repetitive news that Igor said something cryptic, he dreads the lot of it.

Not just for his own sake. Knowing he perished already in some dystopian alternate dimension makes him feel like he’s living on borrowed time, somewhat. And, though his _normal_ job is ninety-nine percent mundane, mortal danger lurks in the remaining one percent whenever he’s called to a domestic dispute.

Instead, he worries on behalf of his brother, which is reflexive by now. Tatsuya, the oblivious boy who still shares his house and still storms off when he talks. Yet Tatsuya could be a catalyst for so many horrifying things he doesn’t understand because he can’t remember any of it, and nobody (not Nanjo, not the exceedingly useless Velvet Room) has been able to tell Katsuya what the trigger might be.

Following that, he worries about his city, especially the children who wave brightly at him on their way to school and call him _Officer-san_.

And then he worries about Kei.

After all, Kei only brings the bad news because he’s the one who has to _find_ it.

“I don’t suppose you went all that way just to buy first editions,” Katsuya says, lifting his tea again.

“You should be a detective, Suou.” Kei mirrors him, moving to take a drink; though he doesn’t know why, Katsuya extracts a dull thrill from that. “They’re old, yes—metaphysical texts, journals written by would-be alchemists. I told you about the archive I’m cultivating, yes?”

With a mouth full of chai, Katsuya can only nod. Nanjo has enough wealth and eccentricity to build a library where members must wield not a card, but a Persona, and he’s putting them to use.

“Well, these shall make fine entries. I haven’t had time to read much of them yet… and I’m shockingly out of practice with Latin. Perhaps I shall consult a translator.”

Katsuya, unable to offer any linguistic insight grander than high-school Mandarin, stays silent.

“Ah.” Nanjo meets his eye. “Forgive me. You must be wondering why I brought you here just to describe some dusty old books.”

“Somewhat. But please, discuss whatever you like.”

It’s not simply politeness. As superficial as it sounds, Katsuya’s always entertained by hearing Nanjo talk. Whether he waxes poetic about politics, or justice, or anything at all, he’s so utterly passionate—so animated and self-assured—that Katsuya is content to let it wash over him, let the allure of being convinced he can _change the world_ pull him under.

If Nanjo is the sort of man who charges headfirst into battle, then Katsuya is the sort who charges behind. No less determined, mind, but he prefers to operate in approximation to greatness; he has a terrible habit of finding noble leaders he’d follow anywhere.

Amano was one of them.

“Allow me to explain,” Nanjo begins, twisting in his seat. Katsuya briskly sits upright, watching Nanjo retrieve a leather journal from the side-table next to him. “The set contained a volume I thought would be of particular interest to _you_. Here. You’ll find the relevant chapter bookmarked.”

He slides forward, holding out the book across the coffee table. Katsuya reaches for it with perhaps less trepidation than he ought, considering its source. He takes it anyway.

“What is it?” he says, though he’s already gingerly opening it to the chapter in question, signposted by a slim, tasseled marker. Its contents are all handwritten, apparently; the cover boasts no title. He recognises a Western alphabet. “Who wrote it?”

“A supposedly schizophrenic Parisian from the nineteenth century. In it, he records a series of encounters with numerous Greek gods.” Nanjo sounds breezily amused. “I know what you’re thinking. I would’ve dismissed it as poppycock… had he not described Helios as being a debonair black cat. Do ask Helios himself about it later, would you?”

Suddenly alarmed, Katsuya stares at Nanjo for a moment, then back at the book. Something stirs inside him, not quite his Persona, not quite curiosity. On some level—where he’s at his most greedy, the parts of him Nyarlathotep surgically excised—he doesn’t want to give the journal back, like that would constitute surrendering some part of himself he didn’t know he’d been missing.

He needn’t have worried. Nanjo goes on, “That’s for you, by the way. Consider it a gift.”

“But… I can’t imagine how much this cost you.”

“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to, Suou?”

“No.” Katsuya smiles, wry and self-conscious. His annual salary is no doubt less than what Nanjo makes in an hour (while _sleeping_ ). “Thank you. I’m grateful you thought of me.”

“That’s more like it.” Nanjo tips his head, adding as an afterthought, “That said, you shouldn’t be thanking me just yet.”

“Oh,” Katsuya says. His earlier trepidation resurfaces; _this_ sounds like the build-up to foul news. “Care to elaborate?”

“I’ve no doubt that you dropped something important to come here. In the grand scheme of things, all I’m doing I’m wasting your time.”

Now, Katsuya really is startled, because he thinks this is the most self-aware Nanjo has ever been. His eyes widen, brows raising, while his lips part with a rebuttal he can’t bring himself to make. For starters, Nanjo would likely see straight through it, and it’s unbecoming for an officer of the law to spew blatant lies.

At home, he has a light-bulb to replace that he didn’t have time to address before work. Several trees probably gave their lives to produce the paperwork currently waiting on his desk. There’s a myriad of tasks he _should_ be doing, yet he’d answered the call from Nanjo’s number immediately because…

Because he’d been worried Nanjo might have another black eye.

It’s ludicrous when he thinks about it; Katsuya’s well aware of that, wouldn’t dream of saying it aloud. Nanjo has the finest doctors in the country at his disposal, not to mention a diligent team of staff.

But when he’d been sitting there, in the same seat he’s in now, arms folded and borderline-pouting, he’d looked so… so…

Young. Unsurprisingly, given the fact he’s twenty-one, but he certainly doesn’t act like it. In fact, Nanjo barely seems conscious of his own youth, oblivious to how jarring it is when he goes from disparaging the stock exchange to admiring fast cars like a teenage boy. Katsuya doesn’t know much about Nanjo’s upbringing, but he knows enough to suspect the last person who’d ever fretted about Nanjo as more than an employer, or comrade-in-arms, was his boyhood butler.

And this is a cycle Katsuya’s doomed to repeat, it seems. A god had told him as much. He grew up without anyone coddling _him_ , too; he was the guardian, then the provider, then the designated recipient of teenage rebellion. Maybe what he sees when he looks at Nanjo is a kindred spirit.

Whatever the case, Nanjo is watching him strangely, his gaze indirect but intent. In a bid to be gracious, Katsuya breaks the silence.

“I’d hardly call meeting a friend a waste of time.”

“Is that what you’d consider us? Friends?”

Again, Katsuya pauses. He’s usually so reluctant to define things, to take for granted just about anything, that he’s mostly shocked by the suggestion he’d been presumptuous this time. It’s true Nanjo has never met with him simply to catch up… but he’d always put that down to their irregular lines of work.

“Yes.” He must be feeling terribly bold today, it seems. “I would.”

“I see,” Nanjo says, then frowns. “Don’t make such a gormless face. It doesn’t suit you.”

Katsuya wasn’t aware he _had_ been making a face, so when he tries to rectify it, he can’t gauge his success. Nanjo leans forward to unite his teacup with its saucer, but doesn’t lean back again. Instead, he rests his elbows on his knees. He continues to look tired.

No matter how wasted it might be, Katsuya feels another twinge of sympathy.

“The sentiment is mutual, sergeant. And it bodes well for what I intend to ask of you.”

In the habit of repressing anything like laughter, Katsuya catches it as a muffled noise in his throat, accompanied by a smile with one side of his mouth. It didn’t slip his mind that he’s dealing with an unapologetic opportunist.

“I did wonder when we’d reach the topic of your ulterior motive.”

“How is your brother faring?”

“Erm,” Katsuya utters, taken aback. If there’s any lesson to draw from this evening, he supposes, it’s that Nanjo is good at disarming him. “Well, he’s… We’re on better terms. He responds with full sentences when I ask how his day went.”

Perhaps that's only because of how hard Katsuya has been trying to not try at all. To loosen the noose, to unlock the shackles. It’s a cruel irony that he’s learning not to shield Tatsuya precisely when there’s so much more to shield him from, these days.

“I’m glad to hear it, though that’s not quite what I meant.” Kei lifts a hand, waving it airily. “Could he afford to go without you for a few days, do you think?”

If Nanjo didn’t look so sober, Katsuya would take that as a joke. _My brother would leap at the chance_ , he thinks. _In fact, he’d tell you he hasn’t needed me for about five years now._

For diplomacy’s sake, he says something else.

“He’d manage. Why do you ask?”

Nanjo doesn’t respond, not right away. He reclines once more, sinking into plush upholstery that, again, a cop wouldn’t be able to afford on a year’s wages. Wearily, or perhaps just absent-mindedly, he pushes a hand through his hair; it’s far more disheveled than he generally wears it, unruly strands of black parting around the intrusion. His fingers are long, slender. He’d make a good pianist.

Realising he’s staring, Katsuya briskly turns his attention to his beverage.

“France,” is what Nanjo says in the end. “The journal intrigues me. I’d like to investigate whatever records Paris holds myself, and I want you to accompany me.”

It’s a good thing Katsuya hadn’t brought the cup to his face yet, because otherwise he might’ve choked.

He shoots Kei an inquisitive look, turning his head quickly as though to avoid missing any indication he’s being played with. It proves to be a waste of energy; the homebody heir is, as always, inscrutable.

“You… don’t _need_ me to come.”

“No, but I _want_ you to.”

“I’ve never gone abroad before.”

“First time for everything. I'm a splendid guide.”

Katsuya doesn’t doubt that claim, and therein lies the problem. He’s only just received the suggestion but he’s already unbearably conscious of how much he _wants_ it, his heart racing just a touch quicker beneath his professional suit. He’s supposed to be a responsible adult; he shouldn’t be so easily excited at this, a tentative ticket to a city he’d dreamed about as a child.

Back when he’d been so adamantly convinced he’d eventually become a chef, he’d longed to see Paris. Partly for the food, the cooks, the culture. Mostly for the magic of it, a type quite unlike the magic he now fights with his bare hands and an oversized Greek housecat.

And seeing it with _Nanjo_ is the most tantalising part. They could go anywhere, do anything; his mere presence could feed all those greedy parts of Katsuya that gave life to a Shadow. It’s been so long since Katsuya let himself want anything. Longer since he let himself have it.

“Why?” he asks, sounding more suspicious than planned. “That is… I’m sure Kirishima would like to go.”

Nanjo all but grimaces, adjusting his glasses. “I’m sure she would, but have you ever been to Paris with an aspiring model? She delights in the rigmarole of sightseeing. No, no; I’d much prefer your company. You understand me.”

 _What you mean is_ , Katsuya thinks, begrudgingly alert to the humour of the situation, _I tend to agree with you more._ Nanjo is inevitably surrounded by yes-men but Katsuya echoes him of his own free will, whether on politics or justice or anything at all.

It washes over him, pulls him under with no dissent.

He follows, he follows, he follows.

Uncertain of what to say next (unversed in the protocol, if there is any), Katsuya silently weighs up his options. He twists his mouth as he watches Nanjo, who’s merely watching him right back. A stalemate of sorts, anxious that one wrong move could negate the offer. Until Nanjo moves a piece.

“If you’d rather not go…”

“I want to.”

There it is, confession bared, drawn from Katsuya’s lips before he could stop it. He smiles, too, without reservation.

Nanjo smiles back, and it doesn’t matter that it’s a comparatively more restrained display because it’s still enough to make Katsuya’s racing heart _twist_ , in the most remarkable way. The way it had with Amano. This time, though, it isn’t accompanied with a familiar edge of futility.

If this is another mistake he’s doomed to repeat, so be it.

“In that case, let me know whenever you’re ready to depart,” Nanjo states, and then the moment is mercifully gone. “I’ll handle the arrangements—and, if need be, get your supervisors to grant you the leave. I can be terribly persuasive.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Katsuya says. Still, after causing so many of his corrupt superiors to lose their pensions, Katsuya’s found his higher-ups to be less unreasonable with him, as of late. “But I think I’ll be all right. I do have one question, though.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Why Paris? You could have chosen anywhere. You already know I would’ve said yes.”

“Mm,” Nanjo says. It’s a relief that he foregoes the theatre of pretending he doesn’t find Katsuya wholly predictable. “You say the same thing to me every time I return from abroad, Suou. Do you know what that is?”

Katsuya supposes he should just get used to Nanjo stumping him. “I… No.”

“You mention the food. You’ve _heard it’s good_.”

“Do I?” Katsuya looks down at the journal on his lap, pushing his glasses back into position. “You tend to visit countries with good food, that’s all.”

“Indeed. Yet I surmised you’d prefer to see Europe before you see the rest.”

The inconvenient hammering in Katsuya’s chest hadn’t stopped, and it certainly isn’t going to now. Perhaps it’s just his childish impulses—on par with Nanjo’s, whenever he’s around those fast cars of his, or absurdly dangerous weapons—but Katsuya doesn’t entirely think it is. Rather, he’s _hopeful_ ; Nanjo sounds like he’s got ventures in mind after this, and that means…

More. More reasons to follow because there are more places to go.

He moves to finish his tea, smiling over the lip of the cup. His mouth dimly aches, and he wonders if this is the most he’s smiled in… weeks, it feels like. Months.

Before he drains the cup, he speaks, emboldened to venture _just_ as close to teasing as he thinks he can get away with.

“I’ll want to visit all the same places Kirishima would, you know. You won’t really be avoiding the rigmarole.”

Kei snorts.

“I’m a businessman, Suou. I already calculated the price I’m going to pay.”


End file.
